Kalashnikov Changes His Tune
VASILY MAXIMOV/AFP/Getty ImagesRussian honour guard soldiers march around the coffin of Mikhail Kalashnikov (portrait seen at left), the designer of the iconic AK-47 assault rifle.
For most of his life, Mikhail Kalashnikov never indicated that he felt any remorse for his invention and its destructive potential.
“My aim was to create armaments to protect the borders of my motherland,” Kalashnikov once said in an interview. “It is not my fault that the Kalashnikov became very well-known in the world; that it was used in many troubled places. I think the policies of these countries are to blame, not the designers.”
Closer to his death, however, things — including Kalashnikov’s attitude toward what kinds of behaviors his weapon enables — started to change. “The longer I live, the more often that question gets into my brain, the deeper I go in my thoughts and guesses about why the Almighty allowed humans to have devilish desires of envy, greed and aggression,” Kalashnikov continued.
As his near-death missive makes clear, this guilt would shake Kalashnikov to his core — so much so that he would state that he wished he had invented something entirely different, something that might have made his parents’ lives as poor Siberian farmers a bit easier.
“I would prefer to have invented a machine that people could use and that would help farmers with their work,” Kalashnikov said during a visit to Germany.
“For example a lawn mower.”
Intrigued by the tale of Mikhail Kalashnikov? Next, read about Thomas Midgley, another inventor whose inventions spelled danger for millions. Then, meet the 106-year-old Armenian woman forced to protect her home with an AK-47.
